Driving Away

I sat in my car flipping through the radio stations. Each one was pretty garbage to listen to. The first one I scanned to happened to be religious talk. I just can’t generally believe anyone who has a radio show is terribly pious. Next up classic rock, songs your suburban friends father would listen to while drinking a light nondescript American beer. Followed up quickly by top forty, to me this is just the bottom of the bottoms of music. Artists that have no idea how to sing or play their instruments, being electronically fixed to the music written by someone who has algorithms for what sells and basically is mass producing fast food music that everyone finds easy to consume but lacks all the essential nutrients that people need to grow and have meaning.

I ended up just turning the radio off. I had been driving for hours. Just following where my heart was telling me to go. Generally south and west. I don’t know why these directions were what was working, but every time I came to a decision point in the road, I would sort of just keep aiming for where the sun was going. It seemed to be working well until the sun was completely out of sight, and now I had absolutely no idea where I was.

How did I get here? No idea. I remember a few words with Clara, but something snapped, my vision sort of blurred and I know a lot of yelling happened. It almost felt like I just exited my body from the back and watched a movie that you don’t remember, just some pieces and parts scattered around your memory. She had been talking about my brother and how he had been living on our couch. I remember that. And I was defending him as he is family, and well you don’t really have a choice.

Brent had come on hard times a few months back. He was laid off of his job due to the CEO of his company wanting a pool installed at his house, and need Brent’s paycheck to get there. Some people are the absolute worst. It really wasn’t his fault, but they also found a way to make it look like negligence on the job and now he had no way of covering the gap until he found something new to pay the bills.

Clara just couldn’t deal with one more person in the house and I don’t blame her. It’s always had to work with extra people in your space. But this argument was just too much. He’s family for christ sakes. I think the last thing I said before I slammed the door shut behind me was, “Fine! well now there will be one less person in the house!” Then I got in the car and just drove. I let all the thoughts in my mind drift away and let the sound of the tires on the road drift up into my ears and sooth away the fight.

I suppose it was time to head back, as soon as I could figure out where back was. I have a long conversation to have with Brent, and some apologies to give to Clara. I know everything will work out though, it always does.

-V-

A Word

I wrote a word. Just one. On a stone and threw it into the ocean. It was my word. It was what would save me. I hope someday someone finds that word and brings it to me. The word is the beginning of my song.

I wrote a song. Just one. On a guitar and threw it into the sky. It was my song. It could tame beasts and free minds. It flitters on the wind and lurks in our minds. It is the song of nature, of humanity, of dreams and dreamers. It binds us, defines us, plays in our hearts and lives beyond us. It is as glorious as a sunrise, somber as a black night. It is as pompous as I am.

I wrote a story. Many, in fact. And put them in the universe. They were mostly my stories, all from my imagination and my life. Some for people in particular, most for anyone to find what they needed. The universe gives people what they need, but it also needs people to be the attendants of its many messages. Each one of us bears this role at different times. We are seldom aware. Perhaps this is my role and time to tell people this is the case.

Sometimes you write what is in the moment in your head. It doesn’t make any sense. Your muse guiding your pen on the page, scripting the words that have need of being there. Even as I write these, I have no idea what their purpose is. But I know it’s needed. I feel that I’m writing this to get across the idea of how, or why I must write. But even that is just a guess, I really have no idea for sure.

I sit in front of my canary-yellow legal pad, pen poised, each symbol placed on the paper in a rushed motion. Missed letters. Misspelled words. Later, I will go back and edit, but the need to get the idea out overtakes my will to be correct and complete. These ideas you are reading, a stream of thoughts from my mind to be placed in your mind. The funny thing is, you are probably reading this in a voice in your head that isn’t your own. Do you know me? Is it in my voice? Or in a voice you think is mine?

As I write I tend to think of each syllable, each pause, each accent, and each run. Do I want you to feel stuttered reading short quick sentences? Is this pause, here, meant to feel like a kiss on the lips from a long lost lover? The idea that I can pass on dreams and emotions through nothing more that a few simple words is both the most beautiful thing I can think of and at the same time terrifying. One word even holds this power. And it can be any word you think of, nonsensical and new, sonorous and simple, or jagged and complex. What is your word?

-V-

Repeating Night

I sat backstage with an unlighted cigarette pressed between my lips. Lighter in hand, I was just about to strike the flint. Bob stumbled in, guitar in hand, and looked at me, “Looks like it’s going to be a good show out there. I think there are fifty people out there.”

I’ve never once had stage fright. I have always felt completely natural in front of people’s searching eyes. Playing music incites a certain state of calm over me. A feeling that can hardly be described directly. Indirectly, it has in the past been able to make me feel completely well, even in the throws of the flu, clearing my sinuses while I play, only to have them get clogged up again as soon as the magic has faded minutes after the last note is played. It’s almost a religious experience, if I knew what that feels like, I can only assume. I looked back at him, set down the cigarette and lighter and responded, “Let’s get to it then!”

Walking out on stage never feels the same, every room; every person in the room makes it feel slightly different. Move one person from the back of the house to the front and the entire evening could be changed. Whether or not people cheer as you walk up to your guitar on stage, or it’s a sea of silence. I’ve found the best thing to do is to ignore the audience and play the music for oneself.

Can this really be done? Honestly in a word, no, not for a second. We, the musicians feed off of the crowd. And likewise, the audience steals our verve on stage. It’s like two vampires sucking at each other, but more aimed at amplifying each other’s enjoyment of the evening. Not so much taking from each other, but more giving to each other. I honestly feel sorry for people too afraid to get on stage and pass this energy back and forth.

Luckily this stage has the lights turned bright on us. I like to imagine that there are hundreds to thousands of people in the audience here just to enjoy the music I created with my friends. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t really matter much to me. I just wish as many people as possible could enjoy it. I look over to Bob, then to Joe to assure that everyone is ready, and started playing the opening line to our first song. Each note carefully plotted to reach out and get people moving.

The remainder of the show is a blur of random stage communication, highs, lows, missed notes, happy mistakes, and every once in a while a new way of playing learned on the spot. I could describe the experience as being similar to being on a dissociative drug of some sort. You are there totally in control of what is happening on stage, but at the same time you’re not really there, kind of in a higher place watching it from a completely different vantage point. The strangest part is that you will never know what it’s like on the other side of the monitors. I’ve had brilliant shows on stage where everything up there is mixed like a dream and I can feel my own bass notes vibrating through my body, and the vocals edge on the divine, only later to find that the house mix blew and people come up to me telling me they have seen better.

-V-

Cigarette

She stood there, huddled in her coat against the cold, cupping one hand over the cigarette held firmly between her lips. Her other hand pulling up from her side held a blue Bic lighter; she lit the cigarette and pulled hard on it. Her eyes closed as she thought about the past, present, and future. Things would be changing, but they were always changing. ‘Why did life have to be like this?’ She thought to herself. No answer made itself clear.

It was rare that she had time to herself like this. Most nights out people who were deeply interested in her would surround her, but tonight she put out a vibe of aloofness. All her friends danced inside the club, she could see them manically moving to the beats pumping through the large speakers. To her it was like watching an intricately orchestrated choreography of which the creator had no idea what was to come next.

Her mind wondered. There was a couple outside in the cold with her. They stood closely to each other underneath a patio space heater. It wasn’t that cold out she thought, but that could have just been the alcohol keeping her warm at this point. Her thoughts started muddling together.

Love. The word drifted across her mind. She latched onto it with fervor. All she wanted was love. True love, not anything watered down or looked at through some rose tinted glasses. She wanted to feel that feeling that she had heard described so many times before; seen it in movies, read it in books, imagined it since she was just a little girl.

But what is Love? She thought, for some reason the definition was escaping her. She felt she would know it if she had it, but didn’t have it right now. She focused all her concentration on answering that simple question: What is it? She knew it was an undeniable feeling, that it made you do strange things. It made you feel safe, free to be oneself. No matter how you acted, someone who truly loved you would understand. But what did that even mean?

She was beginning to realize that she had no idea what she wanted. She wanted an idea, a concept, something that didn’t exist materially, but she could only conceive of things in a material sense. This night was starting to really get on her nerves. She had just come outside to be alone, around people, and smoke her last cigarette.

Alcohol always seems to ply the mind into deeper thought that can’t be controlled. Perhaps it was time she stopped drinking for the night? This rabbit hole was not worth the effort to travel down. The cigarette burnt her finger as it was reaching the end of its life. She took one more drag off of it and tossed it aside. It was time to rejoin reality and stop introspecting so much.

She walked back inside and joined her friends, flashing a mischievous smile at them as she entered into the complex movements they were creating. She disengaged her brain and just let the music take her away to another place. One where though was not needed, just simple existence was enough for now.

-V-